A 30-year old Texas man named Ezekial Gilbert was acquitted of murder yesterday, after a Bexar County jury determined that he justifiably shot a 23-year old escort in 2009. According to his testimony, Gilbert agreed to pay the woman $150 to come over to his home and have sex with him, after he contacted her on Craigslist, and when she attempted to leave his home without making good on her end of the bargain, Gilbert shot her in the neck.

The woman, Lenora Ivie Frago, was paralyzed as the result of the shooting and she eventually died from the injury about seven months later. While Gilbert faced life in prison if he was convicted of murder, his attorneys were able to successfully argue that Frago and her pimp/driver were essentially committing an act of theft, and Gilbert was well within his Texas rights to shoot any criminal committing a “nighttime theft”, according to My San Antonio.

As for Gilbert, he claimed that even with this seemingly strange law and subsequent verdict in his favor, it hasn’t been a very pleasant time for him.

Outside the courtroom, Gilbert thanked God, the Barrera family and the jury for being able to “see what wasn’t the truth” and for the “second chance.”

…

“I sincerely regret the loss of the life of Ms. Frago,” Gilbert said Wednesday. “I’ve been in a mental prison the past four years of my life. I have nightmares. If I see guns on TV where people are getting killed, I change the channel.” (Via My San Antonio, H/T to Gawker)

The prosecutors indeed argued that the law in question shouldn’t apply to a guy who initially gave the money to the woman in exchange for sex – an illegal act, of course – but the jury apparently didn’t think that was important enough.

And I guess since this story is already crappy enough, I’ll leave out the fact that the shooting occurred on Christmas Eve. Damn it, I meant to not type that.

Couple of things:
– “Gilbert’s defense argued the shooting wasn’t meant to kill” (he shot her in the neck!)
– “He thanked God after the verdict was read” (leave it to someone in the south to have the balls to thank god for getting away with killing someone he was paying to have sex with) sigh.

When someone dies even accidentally during the commission of lots of kinds of crime, you can prosecute the people involved in the crime for murder, even if they didn’t bring a gun or something, and the person died trying to get out of the way of the perps or something that is not directly blameable on the perps, but isn’t something the victim’d have been exposed to otherwise.

@ Mechakisc: I thought the exact same thing. But Texas is pretty much international waters.

@Ballz: the crime was that he was soliciting her for sex. That’s a crime in itself.

I was arguing about this story over on Gawker because I make terrible life choices. It made me realize how much I appreciate the Uproxx commenters for not being such raging douchebags. So thanks, everyone, for being reasonable and still funny.

You may be thinking of felony-murder laws. If, in the commission of a felony, someone is killed as a result of that felony, you may be charged with murder even if you didn’t do the killing (think of two guy robbing a bank and one kills someone, then the other is also guilty of murder). Here, the two parties conspired to commit the crimes related to prostitution (though probably not a felony). I could argue the diferent sides and fact specific scenarios, but you people aint paying me.

But just to put a bow on it, besides the prostitution probably not being a felony, many states don’t apply that rule unless the underlying felony is of a dangerous nature ( so, not wire fraud, for example)

So it’s ok to solicit someone for sex and then shoot them in the neck to prevent you from being a victim of “nighttime theft”? What is this? One crime cancels out the other? Murder + Solicitation = Free “Man”?

Could it be something as simple as the prosecutor over-reached? He was trying to get a conviction of murder which, if I understand things correctly, requires some degree of premeditation and motive. This is a messed-up situation and this guy should have gone to prison for a while but going for a murder conviction just opens up way too many holes and technicalities.

I’m a lawyer in Texas and have taken a special interest in this story. As I read the applicable law, the defense allows you to use lethal force against a night-time intruder who is committing a crime (and here’s the kicker) only if you yourself are not engaged in unlawful activity. That clause seems specifically designed to prevent Johns from using this defense against prostitutes. If you ask me, the DA in this case screwed up big-time. Someone should be losing their job over this.

D.A. should have went for a lesser charge, trying to prove he intended to kill her was not possible with the facts the jury had, apparently. (You open up on someone’s car with an assault rifle, does that mean you are just trying to scare them?). She was not an intruder. She was there at his invitation. He was engaged in the unlawful act of soliciting prostitution. Under Texas law you can use the “night-time intruder” law to use lethal force only if you yourself are not breaking the law. So under Texas’ law, this dude should have been convicted, in the least of manslaughter. There are police and 911 dispatchers to handle matters where someone takes $150.00 of your money. The fact that this “missing link” chose not to avail himself of those services and take a young woman’s life over such a small amount of money makes me want to puke. This guy needs to be in prison.